The general relation between language and myth is, as the word _myth_ (Greek ‘muthos’—word) suggests, almost unfathomable; but before leaving the limited Aryan aspect, which is all we have had space to touch on here, one interesting etymology ought to be mentioned, which has sometimes been taken to conceal the whole root and purpose of Aryan culture in the history of mankind. The Hindoos look back to a great teacher called Manu. Whether this individual himself, or his name, is historical or mythical is not particularly important. Hindoo sacred language and literature reveal at any rate a prehistoric _belief_ among certain classes of society that Manu was the originator of their culture and religion. Now ‘manu’ is also their word for _man_; and about this word, as it appears in the different Aryan languages, there are two interesting points. The first is that wherever it crops up it bears the double meaning of ‘human being’ and ‘member of the male sex’; the second that it is thought to be cognate with the root ‘men’, implying ‘to think’, which appears also in English _mind_, Latin ‘mens’,... We have seen that to the external view one of the most remarkable characteristics in which Aryans differed from the races they supplanted was their patriarchal system. The etymology of the word _man_ suggests the inner reason for this, for it hints at a dim consciousness among the Aryans that the essential function of the human being—at any rate of the Aryan human being—is to think. Side by side with the conception of the human being as a “thinker”, we find an instinctive feeling that the human race is especially represented by its male portion. To the Aryan outlook, wherever we find it, the human being is _man_, and God is God the Father. What exotic matriarchies may have held sway before humanity began to worship logic and masculinity we cannot say, for our language throws light only on that tiny portion of humanity’s inner and outer history which is the peculiar contribution of the Aryan races; and, in doing so, it suggests that, in spite of their tendency towards monogamy and a rigid family organization, the “subjection” of women has its roots very deep in Aryan psychology. In this respect Greece and Rome differed but little in essence from India and Persia. The impulse towards a different conception of women, both in their own minds and in the minds of men, which has been giving an increasing amount of trouble to the European races for the last two thousand years, was really, as we shall see, implanted in the Aryan outlook by foreign religions. CHAPTER VI PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION _Paper._ _Mystery._ _Idea._ _Analogy._ _Analysis._ _Logic._ _Quantity._ _Heresy._